‘We stayed there, slowly working our way through the food. I had to hide it from Henry otherwise he’d forget and just start stuffing his face with everything. I knew it wasn’t going to last forever, though, and after that? I had no idea what we were going to do. I was too depressed to think. I just lay there all day on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, and every now and then Henry would ask about Mary and I’d say she was coming.

‘I did find out a bit about him, piecing the bits together from what he let slip. I think he’d been abandoned when he was a baby. Maybe his parents found out there was something wrong with him and didn’t want him. I don’t know if he liked me, but we were together and he was staying with me because he didn’t have anyone else.

‘And then one day I woke up and he was gone. He must’ve wandered off in the night. I didn’t try and figure it out. All I knew was he wasn’t there any more and I was alone.’

‘Did you ever see him again?’ Ella asked.

‘No,’ said Malik. ‘I never did. I’ve absolutely no idea what happened to him.’

Chapter 22

22

‘After Andy died I got sick. I thought at first I was imagining it. You see like when someone says they have a cold and you suddenly think you have one too? Or someone describes the symptoms of some terrible disease and you immediately think you’ve got it? I told myself it was that. Just imagining I was going the same way as Andy. Just my imagination. Or I was just hungry or tired, or not drinking enough water, or I don’t know what.

‘First I got the shakes. Then I got the sweats. Then I got the nightmares … Proper weird ones. Got so I didn’t know what was real and what was in my head. Felt like I was going mad. Seeing giant bugs everywhere. Sometimes talking bugs. Kept seeing my sisters’ bodies, up and walking around. Sometimes I thought Andy was there, sitting in his wheelchair in the corner of the room, and we’d talk for hours and then I’d look round and he wasn’t there any more.